Year: 2014

Eric Swain External Sources

NPC – Non Play Criticism: Elegance

It is a truism in video game circles of serious thinkers that video games are a young medium and that we are forging new territory with our criticism. That is of course bullshit in both respects. Video game critics are often cut off from other mediums. May perhaps that our medium is so new that more energy is required to get anything done as each new step is not just walking along a singular path among the fold, but having to stir and pour the concrete before a step may be taken. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

‘Unrest’: A Tug of War Between Player Knowledge and Character Knowledge

December 3, 2014 | Filed under: External Sources, Recent Posts and tagged with: Moving Pixels, PopMatters, Unrest I played and reviewed Unrest, one of the cut paragraphs from that review turned into this post about the dramatic irony Unrest creates in the space between player knowledge and character knowledge. This is an extremely simplified version of the original post. For reasons I’m not going to get into this was post was supposed to be a short replacement piece for this week. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

NPC – Non Play Criticism: Comic Books and Literary Criticism

It is a truism in video game circles of serious thinkers that video games are a young medium and that we are forging new territory with our criticism. That is of course bullshit in both respects. Video game critics are often cut off from other mediums. May perhaps that our medium is so new that more energy is required to get anything done as each new step is not just walking along a singular path among the fold, but having to stir and pour the concrete before a step may be taken. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

Choose Your Own Clementine

Finally, after months post-release we get around to concluding our podcast series on The Walking Dead Season 2. It has been interesting to see the reception of Season 2 over Season 1. I feel that it’s a little more than the fact in 2012 The Walking Dead was new and fresh to people and in 2014 it wasn’t. As we say in our wrap up Season 2 is a little bit of a mess, one way or another. It struggled to connect to its audience the same way the first season seemed to do almost instantly. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

A House Dividing

Despite a bit of a scheduling hiccup, our talk on episode 4 of The Walking Dead Season 2 is out. Instead of discussing the episode itself, I want to touch on something that happened concerning this episode elsewhere. About two days after recording this episode, IGN held a sit down with two of Telltale’s designers. During that talk the subject of Sarah’s death came up. It was made light of as well as the rash way a player has to behave in order for Sarah to save herself. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

NPC – Non Play Criticism: The End of Evangelion Caused By The Audience

November 7, 2014 | Filed under: External Sources, Recent Posts and tagged with: Anime, Non Play Criticism It is a truism in video game circles of serious thinkers that video games are a young medium and that we are forging new territory with our criticism. That is of course bullshit in both respects. Video game critics are often cut off from other mediums. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

NPC – Non Play Criticism: The Paradox of Horror

October 31, 2014 | Filed under: External Sources, Recent Posts and tagged with: Horror Games, Non Play Criticism, Philosophy It is a truism in video game circles of serious thinkers that video games are a young medium and that we are forging new territory with our criticism. That is of course bullshit in both respects. Video game critics are often cut off from other mediums. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

Ghouls, Ghosts and Gaming

As has become a staple of the Moving Pixels podcast, we try to do something special for Halloween week by checking out horror games. This time we looked to two free indie games. Both are first person walker games set at night in a mostly open style creepy outdoor environment. However, the two games seemed to be illustrative of how to do it right and how to do it wrong. Haunted Memories is an episodic game on Steam that never seemed to move passed its first episode and is pretty terrible on all counts. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

NPC – Non Play Criticism: The Dictionary, The End All Be All of Meaning?

It is a truism in video game circles of serious thinkers that video games are a young medium and that we are forging new territory with our criticism. That is of course bullshit in both respects. Video game critics are often cut off from other mediums. May perhaps that our medium is so new that more energy is required to get anything done as each new step is not just walking along a singular path among the fold, but having to stir and pour the concrete before a step may be taken. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

NPC – Non Play Criticism: Defining “Arthouse”

It is a truism in video game circles of serious thinkers that video games are a young medium and that we are forging new territory with our criticism. That is of course bullshit in both respects. Video game critics are often cut off from other mediums. May perhaps that our medium is so new that more energy is required to get anything done as each new step is not just walking along a singular path among the fold, but having to stir and pour the concrete before a step may be taken. | more